US Officials Eye Government Stakes in AI Companies, NOTUS Reports

The US Government May Want to Own Part of the World's Most Powerful AI Companies

A remarkable story broke on Thursday when a digital news outlet called NOTUS reported that senior officials inside the Trump administration have been having early conversations with some of the biggest artificial intelligence companies in the world about a very unusual idea: the United States government could acquire ownership shares — called equity stakes — in those companies. Think of it like this: when a company sells little pieces of itself to investors, those pieces are called shares. Whoever owns shares in a company gets a portion of that company's profits. The discussions being reported here are about whether major AI firms would voluntarily give some of their shares to the federal government — meaning to the American government itself.

According to NOTUS, which spoke to three people who knew about the conversations, Sam Altman — the chief executive officer, or top boss, of OpenAI, which is the company that makes ChatGPT — has been at the centre of these discussions. Altman is said to have first raised the idea directly with President Donald Trump in a conversation back in early 2025, and has continued to bring it up with senior officials more recently. The planning is still in its very early stages and the exact details are not yet decided, but the core idea being discussed is that the AI companies would hand over shares to the government willingly, not by force.

What Would the Government Do with Money from AI Shares?

Here is the part that is especially interesting. According to the NOTUS report, one idea being discussed is that the profits earned from the government's shares in these AI companies could be paid out directly to American citizens — like a national bonus that every household would receive. This kind of regular payment from a shared resource is sometimes called a dividend, and the idea of an "AI dividend" — where the enormous wealth being created by artificial intelligence is shared with ordinary people — has been talked about by technology experts for years. It is similar to how the state of Alaska pays its residents a share of oil revenues every year.

This story is happening at a very significant moment. Both OpenAI and Anthropic — two of the most important AI companies in the world — are preparing to go public, meaning they are planning to list their shares on the stock market so anyone can buy them. OpenAI is getting ready to file its paperwork for an IPO, and Anthropic, which makes the AI called Claude, has already confidentially filed for one. Neither company responded immediately to questions from journalists about the NOTUS report. The White House also stayed quiet. Separately, President Trump signed an executive order this week asking leading AI developers to voluntarily submit their most advanced AI models for government cybersecurity testing before releasing them to the public. The administration also announced in May that it had already taken two billion dollars in equity stakes in nine quantum computing companies, suggesting this kind of government investment in cutting-edge technology is becoming a real policy direction.